Young Writers Society

Top 8'd an RCQ yesterday with Mono-W Humans again. The new Coppercoat Vanguard is legit, and I really hope Humans stays viable for the next two weeks because I don't have time to switch by the RC in Shanghai lol

If you have not read "This is How You Lose the Time War," read it.

Brain is already on vacation

Happy Star Wars Day!

@Myre @SoullessGinger @Spearmint @Plume @Mageheart @Lib @KateHardy

Part 109: The Nirarin

How do people unironically idolize the serial killer from American Psycho? I legitimately felt sick (independent of my sinuses situation) after watching it.

Also, Morbius was in that movie???

*catch up on writing*

*immediately become ridiculously sick from seasonal allergies*

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee

It took me two weeks to finish the last chapter I completed, and I'd made almost no progress on the current one because I was banging my head against a "boredom block." What I wanted to write felt like a logical progression, but I was completely uninterested in it.

You know how the advice for boring writing is to set off a bomb and see what happens? Well, someone set off a bomb and now all the boredom is gone and I'm basically completely caught up for this week's writing.

Turns out having something entertaining to write about makes all the difference.

Update for those wondering:

Last week, my class went from four helping teachers to two. One is on family leave because her mother is old, sick, and potentially dying. The other fell down the stairs because her son was being a twat, and she's out for at least two weeks due to two broken robes (unsure which, exactly, but sounds like vertebrae). The school has hired a temp, and another class's teacher comes when the temp leaves. And lunch has been consistently late, so my writing time has also been delayed.

But, basically, teaching is ridiculously draining right now. I've also been doing Rosetta Stone again because I hadn't been, and I've wasted most of the year's subscription, which expires in June. And May holidays are coming up, including going back to the States for the first time in roughly five years and all the chaos and conflicting information that travel in a post-covid world entails.

The amount of writing created from the same amount of effort has effectively halved. It's not that I don't know where the chapter is going, I do, it's just so much harder dragging the story there, even if I'm enjoying it. I've had two or three days now where I'm staring at the screen, in between sentences, literally hearing the next words in my head and just...not typing them.

So chapters will be slow for a bit, and maybe none during the latter half of May.

I have a new competitive Pioneer deck. Rip Humans, you've been replaced by an Angel

Rosetta Stone:
(in Chinese) "I don't have four daughters"
Two pictures: *parents with obviously not four daughters*
Third pictures: *parents with four daughters*

Me: "Well, it already used one of the two, so clearly it's the other one"
Rosetta Stone: "No, it's the four daughters picture"
Me: "But you said 'meiyou!' (don't have)"
Rosetta Stone: *trollface*

The road feels long and hard

@Myre @SoullessGinger @Spearmint @Plume @Mageheart @Lib @KateHardy

Part 108: The Ambrosia

T1 fumbling their fourth straight finals. Ah, the joys of being a T1 fan.

Zeus looked in really poor form, Keria wasn't allowed to cook (then got stuck on Braum g4), even Faker was inting by the end of the series...Honestly, T1 needs to struggle during a split so they get all their loss variance out early and can demolish a Worlds run.

Finally saw Joaquin Phoenix's Joker movie (yes, I know, very late to the party) and... Well, it was as uncomfortable as it had looked from previews. It was very odd and not what you'd expect a Joker movie to be, and not in the good way that Ledger's unique portrayal was.

That movie is a Dadaist sermon in a post-modern trenchcoat. What made it especially hard to watch was knowing the kind of cultural icon Phoenix's Joker has become, and just sitting through the whole movie going, "this is Nietzsche' s Madman. He is not an Ubermensch, and there is no meaning here. Why are you idolizing a literal maniac?" yes, dress it up in a sideways glance at class struggles, economic inequality, and the failure of government social systems all you want, that doesn't change the fact that Arthur is unstable. He says himself he's not political, he's not making a statement, and his actions get coopted for a cause he's attached to. I get that the ending sets him up as a savior figure, but he's...he's just not.

At the end, it's just a cynical piece expounding the hopelessness of a society that fails its people, and its only hypothesis to meaning is senselessly dancing to chaos as order collapses. Joker ends with "you wouldn't get it," and maybe I don't. But what I did get is that this version has nothing but meaningless madness to offer, and it's disturbing the amount of people who've subscribed to that message.

Finished the fourth book of Malazan

Pain. Much pain

The D&D movie was actually good. Like, I'm blown away by the level of craft put into it. The plot was very well done, the narrative had symbolism, and they bookended everything nicely.

Personally I'm not a huge rewatcher, so filter this through that lens. The D&D movie was really good as a one-shot and I'll definitely watch a sequel. Even just another party doing a different quest, if given this level of attention and love, would be awesome. But I didn't feel like I wanted to see it again, at least not in theaters. It's very much a consumable movie, as opposed to going for whatever the cinematic equivalent of "literature" is, and that's perfectly okay. It told the story it wanted to tell in a masterful way.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't expect an Oscar-sweeping film, but do know that it's a hearty romp of a movie and you should try to see it if you can.